The Sluts

“Set largely on the pages of a website where gay male escorts are reviewed by their clients, and told through the postings, emails, and conversations of several dozen unreliable narrators, The Sluts chronicles the evolution of one young escort’s date with a satisfied client into a metafiction of pornography, lies, half-truths, and myth. Explicit, shocking, comical, and displaying the author’s signature flair for blending structural complexity with direct, stylish, accessible language, The Sluts is Cooper’s most transgressive novel since Frisk, and one of his most innovative works of fiction to date.”

This book was written as a series of reviews on a male prostitution enthusiast website, a series of emails, and then as forum posts. It was an interesting read to say the very least. It was a really in your face, but not there at all type of book. Nothing actually happened, but everything did. If you have ever read a book and felt an utter exhaustion at the end because it felt like you have lived multiple lives, you will understand how I felt reading this book.

The basic plot of the book is a prostitutes adventures becoming a legend online for his skills and his lack of self-preservation. It follows him to death, then to prison, then to death again, and into a snuff film. It also follows his pimps from saviors to abusive to killers. Nothing is set as being true. There is no way to verify that anything that is said actually happened. There is an issue where because everything is online no one can be sure that anyone is who they say they are or that they aren’t all the same guy.

The book got really graphic when it was describing what led up to the alleged snuff film. This is not a book to be read by the squeamish. There was a scene where a prostitutes testicles were removed and then he was forced to eat them. That was just one of the scenes. There were more. So if you can handle graphic crazy abusive and dangerous sex for some crazy plot, then this book is pretty fascinating. It is a quick read despite how intense it is.